


the time someone did die

by kakkoweeb



Series: Pomp or Circumstance [5]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, Ginban Kaleidoscope AU, M/M, different team names tho, pls don't be afraid it's not THAT kind of death fic i swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-10-31 16:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10903536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kakkoweeb/pseuds/kakkoweeb
Summary: It's not everyday that Tobio finds the true meaning of living for someone else.--"While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior."- LinkOiKage Week Day 5





	the time someone did die

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: the team names are completely made up--randomly generated in fact--and before the ones that appear in the fic were chosen, the author had to laugh for 54 years because god damn
> 
> also, the following fic is by no means the entire au.

“You have _gotta_ be kidding me.”

Tobio’s entire body freezes over, save for his eyes which take to scanning his bedroom for any sign of life other than his own self and the plants his parents had littered everywhere in the hope of making his apartment cosier and more abundant in oxygen. He doesn’t see any other living being that might be capable of speaking (definitely doesn’t have any guests over), looks at his computer and doesn’t see it booted up and capable of playing media, looks at his radio and remembers it’s been broken since the night after he moved in.

So who had spoken?

Swallowing, he elects to sit in silence, perhaps wait for the instance to repeat itself for the sake of ensuring he simply isn’t hearing things. He doesn’t move either, can’t; the voice had sounded so close—he can’t risk doing anything that might make noise and cause him to miss it, especially if it turns out it belongs to an intruder.

“Is this really how you normally spend your day?” _There it goes._

“Who the fuck—” Tobio nearly yells, getting up from his desk and dropping his sports magazine on the tabletop, looking around.

“Who are _you?”_

“I asked you first,” Tobio snaps, still glancing around his bedroom, even out the windows and floor and ceiling, but finding nothing out of the ordinary. His frown deepens. “And where _are_ you?”

There’s a pause, and then a slow, sharp intake of breath Tobio can’t believe he hears. It’s too close, too close to not be right beside him or else projected from a loudspeaker. “First of all, I need you to calm down,” the voice says, and now that it’s levelled, it sounds a bit familiar. “This is going to sound crazy, and I’m gonna need you not to flip your shit and end up hurting yourself because it’s not going to be good for the both of us. You understand?”

No, Tobio thinks, but the sooner he gets an explanation to whatever is going on, the better. “Fine,” he says.

“Okay, I’m inside you.”

Tobio internally, for the lack of a better phrase, flips his shit. “ _What_ ,” he asks, though it doesn’t sound like much of a question.

“See, this is—“

“What the _fuck_ does that mean?”

“Would you let me finish, you aggressive oaf? I have an explanation. Sort of. I mean, yes, I do. It’s insane, but it’s an explanation, so listen for a minute.” The voice pauses again, seems to take a deep breath. “Okay. I think…I think that I might have just…died.”

There’s another silence, and Tobio blinks in confusion. “What does that have to—“

“I said _quiet_ for a minute, Aggro-chan,” the voice says, and Tobio grits his teeth, not at all sorry that whoever this is is claiming to have died. “So. I think I just died, because a few minutes ago—I think—I woke up in this…really white place. There were lots of clouds and this one stairway and the sun looked like it was right above my head but it didn’t feel hot. Kind of like heaven.” Even if it isn’t a complete lie, Tobio doubts that this person would ever have the chance to see heaven. “And then there was this big voice that started talking and it said—ugh, I can’t believe this—that there were…technical difficulties with the gate?”

_“What?”_

“I have no idea either. But basically they couldn’t get the gate open, so they said they’d send me back for a hundred days on earth, and then the cloud I was stepping on opened and I fell like fifty thousand feet _aaand_ now I’m here. With you.”

Tobio stands by his desk, taking deep, controlled breaths, and then he begins to feel all of his extremities for abnormalities—signs of a fever, unreasonable sweating, rashes, anything that might provide a better explanation than ‘heaven couldn’t let me in so now I’m in your body’. “Am I—am I going insane?” he asks himself, ignoring the voice’s protests. “I’m not on any medication. I didn’t get injured. I don’t feel hysterical.” He crosses to the opposite side of the room and examines his face in the mirror. “Am I dreaming?”

“You’re so disagreeab— _oh my god?”_

Tobio jumps. “What?”

“ _Oh my god._ Holy cannoli. Not only am I suddenly dead—I’m back as a ghost and haunting the genius setter, _Kageyama Tobio_ of the Golden Gibbons. What in the—how much does God hate me? What have I ever done?”

“What—“ Tobio backs away from the mirror, rapidly blinks and looks around, intending to look at this self-proclaimed ghost but unsure if it’s possible to do so. “Do I know you?”

“ _’Do you know me’,”_ the voice repeats, laugh dripping with sarcasm and bitterness. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Tobio-chan? So _this_ is what your apartment looks like. Huh, it’s a lot cleaner than I thought it would be.”

“Who are you?” Tobio demands in a most commandeering voice, furrowing his brow.

“No tellsies.”

“Do you play volleyball too?”

“That’s a good question!”

Growling in frustration, Tobio yanks open his bedroom door and stomps outside.

“Where ya goin’?”

“You’re still following me?”

“Silly, silly Tobio, I’m a part of you now! I see all that you see, hear all that you hear, feel all that you feel.”

“Oh yeah?” Tobio challenges, peering outside his front door to check for the daily paper, finds that it hasn’t arrived yet. He takes a miniscule portion of his skin in between two fingers. “Does that mean you feel this?” And he pinches.

“ _Ow,”_ the voice cries out. “Jesus, don’t do that!”

“How about you get out?”

“I can’t— _OW._ Stop it, doesn’t that hurt you?”

It does, but it’s a small price to pay. “Nope. Leave.”

“Even if I wanted to— _OW. STOP.”_

The screaming rings inside his head and he grimaces, nowhere near as satisfied as he should be but he complies, briefly glancing at his reddening flesh, and hunts down the remote for his living room television. He doesn’t know anything about this ghost but if it’s someone he knows, it’s most probably a relative or another professional player he’d come across, maybe even butted heads with, in his past years of being in the league. He’s certain he doesn’t have a relative this petty and so he clicks open the TV, flips to the news channel before the screen even finishes coming to life, scans the entirety of the display.

He eventually sees it in the rolling news tape at the bottom of the screen, and it all starts to make sense: the familiarity, the pettiness, the bitter laughter.

‘RED SPIKES SETTER OIKAWA TOORU FOUND DEAD AT 25’

 

❄ 

 

It takes him a few more hours to come to terms with Oikawa’s death, and several few more to finally accept that he’s truly, invisibly hovering over Tobio as a spirit, sharing in his sensations and experiences. His annoying voice becomes quieter when Tobio finally uncovers his identity and falls completely silent when Tobio reads a news article regarding the discovery of his body (at home, in bed, no sign of struggle or the likes, just a face blissed out in undisturbed sleep) online. It’s a bit perturbing, that Tobio can hear even his deep, heavy breaths as they together read the interviews with his family and teammates. It makes him feel heavy himself.

“Do you…want me to go to your wake?” Tobio asks, sometime after he finishes reading articles.

“No,” Oikawa says defiantly, but his voice is far from stable. “I don’t want you anywhere near my body.”

“Fine.” Tobio shrugs. “I just thought you seem like the type to want to see people crying over your corpse and expressing their regrets or being fake about it, or something.”

His heart jumps, and he becomes afraid that his little quip might not have been the most appropriate one to make, but he hears Oikawa snort, or perhaps that’s a tiny laugh. “Well, you’re right about that,” he says. “Someone’s gotta separate the hoes from the bros.”

Tobio relaxes, snorts in return.

The wake is grand; that much becomes clear before he even steps into the hall where it’s taking place. Media trucks and sports journalists are gathered by the entrance, most probably not permitted to head inside, and they’re all quick to flock to the next big volleyball star who arrives to pay their respects. Tobio is absolutely not an exception. It isn’t possible for him to be.

“Kageyama-san, how does it feel to be at the wake of your recently-deceased rival?” one of the personnel asks.

“It’s a wake; of course it’s sad,” Tobio tells them, only slightly put off by the chance that they were expecting a completely different answer. “I have a lot of respect for Oikawa-san, as a player and as a person. He’s a very good rival.”

“Would you say that the loss of your rivalry will be beneficial on the part of your team, and yourself as an individual?”

Oikawa grumbles and curses inside his head, and Tobio sends a warning glance at the sky. “It’s not possible for anyone to find an upside to this, and the loss of a rivalry is nothing to be happy about,” he replies; several people in the gathering crowd hunch over their notes. “A rival isn’t an enemy. For me, Oikawa-san has always been an inspiration, and the source of my drive to get better at what I do and to eventually reach his level one day. Losing him isn’t going to change that. He’ll always be the setter I look up to, and I’m going to keep trying to get better—I guess, also to honour his memory.”

That’s the final question he takes before he excuses himself, allows the peace-keepers to silence the bustling hoard of news writers, and heads inside the hall for Oikawa to finally reunite (if only in spirit) with his loved ones, teammates, and all those ‘hoes and bros’ he’d mentioned before.

“Cheesy little shit,” he hears Oikawa mumble as he moves.

Tobio lets his smile form in his eyes. “I meant every word.”

 

❄

 

It doesn’t take long before Oikawa regains his jolly, snarky spirits, and once again, he’s provoking Tobio over every little thing. Even his baths aren’t spared from nonsensical, immature complaints.

“Could you not look down at your body so often?” Oikawa says one morning as he bends to shrug off his undergarments.

Tobio frowns. “We’re both guys anyway. Isn’t it fine?”

“Doesn’t mean I wanna see you naked. Ew.”

Quite honestly, it’s amazing how he manages to find something to protest about in every little thing, though more than admirable, it just strikes Tobio as incredibly irritating. He rolls his eyes as he hops into his shower. “I’d have thought you’d seen it enough by yourself when you take _your_ baths,” he says, turns on his water. “Wouldn’t have expected that there was nothing to see. My mistake, then.”

“You wanna go, you bastard?”

But the real winner, the real kicker, the real bane of Tobio’s existence, is the fact that he has to take the loquacious ghost to practice. He doesn’t play for an opposing team anymore, and he never will again, but the blood of the Red Spikes is still flowing through his theoretical veins and the competitive spirit still dwells in his theoretical being; that much is obvious when Tobio steps onto the court and is greeted by some teammates already warming up, and Oikawa coos.

“ _Ooh,_ I get special access to the Gibbons practice,” he practically sings. “I can see all your team secrets.”

“Shut up,” Tobio can only retort. “There’s no way for you to even use them. What are you so happy about?”

“Say, how well can you set when someone’s playing bad music?”

“I don’t know; I’ve never had to set while listening to bad music.”

“Well, there’s a first time for everything,” Oikawa says, the grin in his voice clear as day, and Tobio wants to theoretically wring his neck when he starts belting out an English song, most probably sung by a female artist with a good vocal range, at the top of his theoretical lungs.

Tobio balls his hands into fists as he walks. “You _asshole,”_ he hisses, “stop that.”

Oikawa deliberately botches the high note; Tobio pinches himself again.

“OW! Geez—careful there, Tobio-chan, you wouldn’t want to damage your receiving arm.” The singing only carries on, perhaps sounding even worse than it did before.

Aggressively running his hands through his face, quelling the urge to yell out, “Both arms are receiving arms!” without context and risk getting labelled the team nutcase, Tobio limps over to Ennoshita, one of his more rational teammates, and sighs out.

“Hey, Kageyama. Need something?”

“A concussion.”

“…what?”

The bad music continues up until warm-ups finish, gives Tobio the beginnings of a very bad migraine, but Oikawa—in all his immature glory—is still a volleyball player after all. He falls completely silent when Tobio starts to set in all seriousness, when their team breaks up into groups that play their own small games. He’s truly observing, Tobio figures, and he’s not about to question what for. Dying isn’t going to change how passionate Oikawa truly is, how much he loves the profession he chose and how excellent he is at it. Tobio focuses on his games, on his technique, on working with his group and defeating the opposing one, on making sure that nothing Oikawa sees or feels him do will be subpar.

It’s only when he’s alone in his own corner of the court, far away from his other teammates who’d decided to stay for extra individual practice, serving ball after ball, that Oikawa finally speaks up again.

“Can’t you put a little more power into that?”

Tobio’s form breaks and the ball he’s tossed up bounces to the floor. He glances warily at the others in the area. “Huh?” he whispers.

“Your serve. It feels good on the arm but you can do better, I can tell.”

“Well—yeah, probably,” Tobio says, picking his ball up. “I’ve tried it out, but going any stronger than this isn’t safe for me right now. And so close to the tournaments too.”

“So when are you gonna make it safe, when you’ve already lost?”

A thread snaps somewhere deep inside Tobio’s system, and he narrows his eyes, feels an eyebrow twitch. “Wow,” he says, spinning his ball in his hands before smashing it into the ground, once. Some of his teammates glance at him as he traps it in between his palms once more. “You’ve got a lot of nerve. How about you make yourself useful for once and share some of that?”

Oikawa hums. “Kageyama Tobio, are you asking me to _leak?”_

“That makes it sound like I’m telling you to pee. Do you have any tips or not?”

“Just because I’m dead, doesn’t mean I’m gonna betray my team, and me sharing your body doesn’t mean I automatically support yours. Or you, for that matter.”

“I figured.” Tobio shrugs, and runs up to serve again.

But Oikawa doesn’t stop. The more time Tobio spends on the court, the more opportunities he has to point out flaws or areas for improvement. He makes comments about Tobio’s playing style, things he’d observed before from the stands or the opposite side of the court and things he’s just noticed now with his whole other perspective. It exhilarates Tobio somehow; it almost feels like he’s under Oikawa’s wing. Almost, definitely, because no matter what he says, Tobio’s subtle requests for at least a little advice go unheeded, hatefully refused, each time.

(“Ask all you want, but there’s no way in hell—or in my case, heaven with a defective gate—am I going to divulge, to my greatest rival, all of my greatest secrets.”)

Very quickly, it goes from exhilarating to frustrating. It would seem like Oikawa is trying to be helpful by making a show out of informing Tobio of his mistakes, but it almost seems like he’s goading at this point, baiting Tobio, urging him to seek correction for the sake of being able to shoot him down. It’s an excellent test to the patience, or so Tobio finds, and he can’t help but wonder just how much he has left.

(“Fine. Your secrets can go ahead and die with the rest of you, then.”)

He finds out eventually, on the day of the first game of the season. From the moment they wake up, Oikawa seems extra surly, drowns Tobio in petty remarks and sarcasm he only ignores all day, too focused on getting himself in condition for his upcoming matches. He supposes that it makes sense, how Oikawa is acting up; there’s going to be a game against his team today and though Tobio can’t exactly imagine the feeling, he figures it must be disorienting, maybe even upsetting, that he’s rendered helpless and left observing his comrades from the opposing side of the net.

Tobio doesn’t talk to him about it though, and some might argue that that is his first mistake.

When his team appears on the court, his voice takes affectionate tones and he’s quick to fondly hum when Tobio takes to staring at each of the members for his sake. “They look like they’re in good shape,” he notes. “Fired up too. Oh my god, did Kindaichi get a haircut? It looks good on him.”

Kindaichi did, but though Tobio finds it nice to hear him happily assessing his colleagues, friends, with genuine concern, he doesn’t stare for long. “That’s great and all,” he says, beginning to stretch, “but could you keep all this to yourself for a while? The game’s starting soon and I need to concentrate.”

It’s a perfectly reasonable request, he thinks, but Oikawa falls silent for a good while and what breaks this silence is not a word, but a scoff. “Aren’t you supposed to be a genius or something?” he taunts. Tobio’s arms freeze, stretched above his head. “I thought you were the perfect setter against all odds, immune to _worldly_ things like distractions?”

“What about everything you’ve ever seen me do told you that?” Tobio asks, bemused and ever so slightly put off. Still, he tries to keep their conversation light; Oikawa as he is now, where he is now, is dangerous. “Your stupid singing did me in pretty good, and that was just practice.”

“Oh, yeah, my concert! I never got to finish my Chaka Khan medley.”

“Don’t,” Tobio warns, completely seriously this time. “I let you do whatever you wanted before, but this isn’t training anymore. This is important to me. And it would be to you too if you were—there.” He glances at Oikawa’s team, hears a petulant exhale from inside his head. “I know you don’t like me but I’m not asking you for help; I just need you to keep quiet for the entire game. Can you do that?”

“Stop talking to me like I’m a child and I’ll think about it.”

“Stop acting like one and I’ll consider it.”

At first, it all seems fine. Warm-ups finish, Oikawa’s team serves and—without Oikawa himself, Iwaizumi getting first serve—the first ball is better received than in any other game the Gibbons have played against the Spikes. The rally is tough, it’s long, but eventually Azumane manages to get a clean attack in and the first point is scored. Tobio turns to the rest of the team for a brief success huddle, but instead jumps in surprise at the sound of Oikawa’s voice.

“Don’t mind!”

He frowns. “Watch it,” he murmurs.

“Shit. Sorry, force of habit.”

Tobio accepts the apology, but he’s missed the huddle; he simply puts up a hand and allows Azumane to clap his own against it.

More and more plays and points pass. Tobio admits his attention is a little more divided than he wants it to be, but he manages to study the enemy well enough, find holes in their strategy to exploit in favour of his own. He becomes an unexplainable mix of delighted and dreadful when his team manages to reach set point with an impressive lead, but he still holds his hands up for a toss, struggles to keep his focus locked on Hinata, jumping up and ready to spike his way to that one last point.

Oikawa coughs; Tobio’s hands hesitate and the toss ends up short.

He cringes, apologizes to his teammates, inconspicuously grumbles, “What the fuck? Do you even still _need_ to cough in there?”

“There’s something in your throat. It’s pissing me off.”

“Well, only I can get rid of it, so can you not do that next time?” he hisses, tries to cough out whatever is making Oikawa uncomfortable (he hadn’t noticed it all; he hardly notices anything when he’s in a game). “You messed up my toss.”

“What are you so afraid of? You’re already about to take the set and the gap was at eight points.”

“Seven now, thanks to you,” Tobio corrects. “And there’s everything to be afraid of until the game is over.”

Oikawa makes an undecipherable noise.

Things get louder after they do take the first set, both on the court, in the stands, and inside Tobio’s head—and he tries to ignore all the noise but he is aggravated like never before. He hears Oikawa breathe a little louder and jumps up a fraction of a second later for a block. He hears Oikawa hum and his serve cleanly lands outside of the playing area. He hears Oikawa yawn— _yawn—_ and his toss moves too fast, hits the side of Sawamura’s hand rather than his palm.

The sight of it makes his blood boil. “ _What_ is your _problem?”_ he winds up yelling, and the entirety of the gymnasium seems to freeze.

Sawamura stammers, disoriented, and Tobio is quick to make amends (“No, sorry, I—I didn’t mean you—”) but the relief that comes with Sawamura’s forgiveness is quickly choked by the sound of a whistle, a single gesture from the referee, the sight of Sugawara looking him in the eye—apologetically, worriedly—and holding up his number, ready to take his place on the court.

He takes a breath to calm himself but his shoulders quake. He meets Sugawara without resistance, watches as he stands where Tobio had been earlier, but his nails are digging into his own skin.

After that, it’s quiet.

 

❄

 

A night later he dreams of tears. They aren’t his tears and he doesn’t see them, but his heart is heavy and sobbing echoes in his ears. It’s a sadness he doesn’t often have the opportunity to feel, and when he wakes, actual, tangible tears pour from his eyes without rational reason. He half-expects Oikawa to make fun of him for it, but his voice never comes, and it hasn’t for over a day now. The space in his mind where Oikawa’s voice resounds is quiet.

It’s quiet during the games too, and though Tobio is gladder for it, satisfied that he isn’t getting sent to the bench anymore at least, it’s unnerving. Part of him wants to believe that a hundred days have passed without him knowing and Oikawa is already gone, but no, he knows it’s barely been thirty and he can still hear the ghost sometimes. Breathing, mostly. Making small noises that mean who knows what. Neither of them initiate conversation; Tobio isn’t sure who even has the right to begin.

On the third day, first game of the tournament, however, right as the whistle for Tobio’s first serve blows, he speaks.

“Have you ever tried serving short?”

Tobio stops, doesn’t attempt to serve, focuses on Oikawa’s voice.

“Oh, yeah, you can’t talk while you’re by the service line. Well, you should try it. Just adjust your toss however you’re comfortable and focus on the control. And speed, if you’re feeling lucky.”

He knows he has before, Oikawa probably having been prime witness to a few of those moments others might call idiocy rather than luck, but he blinks. The five seconds are almost up.

“Go on. Do it.”

He does, and it gets them one service ace and then three points in a row. Even above the cheering crowd and obnoxious, friendly screams from his teammates, he still hears Oikawa’s small, (dare he say) impressed snort.

That isn’t the last time Oikawa advises him in the middle of a move or a game, and though Tobio is to no ends grateful, he’s equally confused. This is the same Oikawa, he tells himself, that had given him an entire five-minute monologue about the importance of everlasting team loyalty and has created over twenty variants of the sentence “I am never going to help you with your volleyball” in the span of a few days. He doesn’t want to complain, not at the risk of losing the privilege, but it’s hard not to get antsy, and it’s only a matter of time before his curiosity manages to overtake him.

“Why are you suddenly helping me?”

Oikawa pauses, and his hum takes an oblivious tone. “Hmm?”

“I said, why are you suddenly helping me? I mean—I’m not complaining, but I thought you said you weren’t on my side. What changed your mind?”

Again, Oikawa pauses, and this time it’s long. Tobio doesn’t push, only stays quiet and waits, knows that pushing will do no good and that Oikawa will speak if he truly wants to. And he does.

“I guess it just truly sank in that I’m dead,” Oikawa says, and Tobio starts. He isn’t sure what he was expecting, but this definitely isn’t it. “I’m dead, but I got lucky and got an extra hundred days still conscious. I don’t want to spend all of them being an asshole.”

Not giving advice doesn’t necessarily make him an asshole, Tobio wants to tell him, but then he continues: “What you said a few days ago, about my secrets dying with me—it scared me a little.”

Tobio starts again, starts to apologize, but then he asks: “I was a good player, wasn’t I?”

“Yes!” Tobio says immediately.

His lack of hesitation seems to make Oikawa laugh. “I was good. I _am_ good, but I can’t play anymore,” he says, pauses. When he speaks again, the mood of his voice has changed. “But heaven brought me here to you. God knows why, but—that’s fine, I think. You might as well be the last good I’ll ever do in this life.”

It’s not an apology, but Tobio doesn’t need it to be. He breathes in, shoulders trembling but no longer from the frustration of getting switched out of a match, and breathes out, smiling.

 

❄

 

Oikawa is amazing.

They train together, Tobio on the court, Oikawa fully-present inside his very core, and in no time at all even Tobio can tell that he is improving explosively, able to do things he hasn’t ever tried before, and more than feeling awe at how quickly he is able to respond to instruction or glad that even his team notices and benefits from everything he is suddenly doing better, all he can think is _Oikawa is amazing._ He knows so much, has so many secrets to impart, understands Tobio better than Tobio understands himself at times and knows exactly how to deal with him, how to bring him to the top of his game and beyond.

It makes Tobio a little envious, but the adrenaline that courses through him at the thought of how skillful, how truly formidable his once-rival is easily takes that envy and pushes it back until it’s nowhere to be found. And, especially when he’s on the court, he can’t be anything but elated.

He doesn’t think he can ever thank Oikawa enough, but he does try. On his day off, some few days before the Championships, he takes the train back to his hometown, takes Oikawa with him of course, strolls until they’re at a faded-looking park, strolls more until they reach an open, deteriorating basketball court sitting atop an elevated patch of land near the edge of the place. It’s where Tobio spent most of his days as a child, ignoring older people playing basketball and making memories with his volleyball instead, tossing it in the air, taking it to the face.

When he tells Oikawa this, the latter laughs. “Good to know you started where the rest of us did,” he says. “I’m not trying to be rude or anything, by the way, but why are we here?”

“I don’t know, isn’t it normal to do vacation-y stuff on days off?”

“So this is your idea of bonding, then?”

The grin in Oikawa’s voice makes Tobio shrink into himself. “Is it bad?”

And the laugh that follows doesn’t improve things. “Not really, but I guess if you take a ball and re-enact your childhood days of getting hit in the face, it would be way better.”

“Ha-ha,” Tobio dryly responds. It isn’t a real laugh, but he’s smiling all the same.

 

❄

 

Sometimes Oikawa still gets too quiet to be considered normal. Sometimes he still complains about Tobio’s habits and mannerisms and day to day itinerary. Sometimes he still sings Chaka Khan and Tobio can never be sure whether he does to be annoying or it’s just something he truly does as a person. But he is sure of one thing: it feels good to have him around, to stand on the court without anyone else in sight but not feel alone. He doesn’t think he wants to admit it out loud just yet, but he feels blessed, almost like he’s been personally graced by God in the most unconventional of ways.

Sometimes he wonders if Oikawa feels the same, but he doesn’t get around to asking.

When he’s standing on the court at the Finals, however, when he’s surrounded by his teammates all warming up a little more seriously than usual, when he’s looking up at the excessively numerous, excessively wild crowd, when he isn’t listening to any of them because his head is filled with nothing but Oikawa, rambling about his first Championship game as main setter and spewing out incoherent, chopped up pieces of advice almost like a mother sending their kid out for the first day of school and not knowing what to say first, he can’t help but feel like when he does ask, no answer will be disappointing, as long as it’s an answer that comes in Oikawa’s voice.

And when the whistle blows for his first serve of the game, he doesn’t move until he hears that voice, saying, “Get this serve, mess it up, it doesn’t matter. But get better for the both of us, Tobio. Don’t you _dare_ tarnish my memory.”

All eyes and the cameras are on his face, but he allows it to form a confident grin; and there’s no reason to speak when he’s by the service line, but he allows himself to say: “Never.”

He tosses the ball up, and he almost feels Oikawa tossing it with him.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [GINBAN KALEIDOSCOPE AU]
> 
> at first this was going to be a guardian angel au, but then i remembered The Original Skating Anime™ (at least in my heart) and decided heyy let's do this for volleyball. for those of you who are unfamiliar with ginban kaleidoscope, it's basically this, but with figure skater sakurano tazusa and canadian pilot pete pumps (whose seiyuu is the same as iwaizumi's lmao and his first words in the series are literally "KISS MY ASS" in english). idk why he's canadian but we'll take what we can get. also while brainstorming what parts i was going to include (it was a lot more poetic in my head dkdfj fuck my inability to be coherent in writing) i listened to the series' [ending theme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B35usJwbZVA) and gave myself feelings. can you believe. it was the song okay this is my childhood
> 
>  
> 
> [feel free to talk/ask about this au and the anime, if you're curious!](http://kakkoweeb.tumblr.com/)


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